Member-only story
Column
Trump Knows He’s Losing and He Wants America to Lose With Him
The only thing the first debate showed is that the president is more dangerous than ever
The first presidential debate — what a shitshow. Tuesday night wasn’t just a circus or a debasement of politics: It was a warning of just how dangerous things are getting. Trump used the debate stage to try to delegitimize an election he knows he’s likely to lose and to signal to violent white supremacists that he may need their brand of “support” come election day. It was a disgrace, and it was frightening.
Donald Trump knows he’s losing his grip on the presidency. He can see where he is in the polls, he knows that Americans are horrified over his administration’s response to Covid, and that the country is in rapid decline. But Trump’s fear about losing power goes beyond leaving the White House; there’s a massive debt waiting for Trump once he leaves office, and potential criminal charges.
The president is desperate to protect himself. So instead of focusing on any particular issues, reaching out to undecided voters, or participating in a good-faith exchange of ideas, Trump decided to use the debate stage as a bully pulpit.
The president mowed over Democratic nominee Joe Biden and moderator Chris Wallace (who, instead of controlling the debate, nervously chuckled as he let the president run amok) — but that wasn’t really the point, just icing. Trump’s real priority on Tuesday was to sow confusion and fear, and to convince the American people that any election results that don’t favor him are illegitimate.
It’s hard to overstate the danger of such a thing: The president of the United States is preemptively attempting to invalidate election results. It’s what Trump has been doing for weeks — calling into question the legitimacy of mail-in ballots, and demanding that “security” be let into polling stations.
